Selling new homes is not for the fainthearted nor is it for those salespeople who believe new homes sell themselves.
Discerning customers base their purchasing decisions on a myriad of factors and you as a salesperson, are a contributing factor to their decision to buy a new home on your development. How much time is too much time to spend with a customer? When customers feel overwhelmed with too much information, they tend to shy away from a buying decision. Selling is something you do FOR a customer, not TO them. On that basis, it’s crucial to find a steady rhythm in the conversation with the customer.
Give to Get
Highly impressive and successful sales professionals can demonstrate their expertise by creating a balance of two-way relationship and conversational style of selling. Achieving this give-to-get rhythm is all about consciously breaking down what you say and how you present so that you give valuable, small amounts of information – the more relevant for the customer the better – to create the space between you both so that your customer can give you information back in return. This selling style doesn’t happen overnight, but styling your conversation with some small test and trial questions will naturally get you into a give to get rhythm that serves you both.
As human beings, when our emotions are high, we are highly receptive to making great decisions when we feel good about something. Thus, accompanying a customer around a demonstration is vital. No salesperson wants to miss an opportunity with a customer at this key decision-making time.
Hearing that: “We’re just going to go away and think about it” moment is every sales person’s worst nightmare so try and avoid it by sensing their readiness and desire and don’t forget to act confidently on it. All these things allow the customer to use you as the expert so being valuable to them in the moment is crucial.
Two Way conversation
Consumer behaviour plays a large part in involving the customer in this two-way conversation. Many customers are so used to the online world now. With online shopping at our fingertips, customers are used to making decisions in their own private space. Finding the right moment to leave the customer on their own during a demonstration can give the customer confidence to make that buying decision. Allowing them some space to have their own thoughts can really help. Think about a restaurant, a waiter presents the menus and leaves you to choose. They don’t ask you straight away! You’d feel rushed and put under pressure about what to get. And that’s just a meal … not their potential dream home!
Rapport Building
Buying a new home is a detailed buying decision. It is essential that salespeople set targets to spend a good amount of time with every customer. If you spend between 3 – 5 quality minutes with everyone who comes to the site to build rapport and try to establish how you might be able to inspire the customer to buy. Not pushing your product is key to involving them during the process. Rapport building and developing that relationship, however small, is how you create that space for them to interact with you. Not every visit results in a Reservation so by being ruthless with time and gracious with people, you can also create a next step that gets you both closer to a sale.